The advantage I possessed was dangerously minimised by my physical incapacity, but I hoped, given time, to get back some measure of strength. The great thing was to preserve my liberty until I had acquired force enough to use it. I speedily realised that I could not remain where I was, for Belleville was making towards me and reflection would soon teach him that weakness would compel me to seek a prop for my support. But I feared to move lest the sound should betray my whereabouts. For the same reason I almost feared to breathe. I thought to myself, "Oh, that he would fire again so that I could move elsewhere under cover of the noise."
Once or twice he seemed to look me in the eye. He made a zigzag to my chair. There he paused and listened. I ceased to breathe. Only six feet separated us. But impatience consumed him. "Tell me where you are!" he growled, "or by the Lord when I catch you I'll tear you limb from limb." I breathed while he spoke and ceased when he stopped.
"You can't escape me!" he snarled. "I've only to light my blue lamp and I'll find you in a minute. But if you put me to that trouble and make me waste my precious oil besides, well, look out, that's all!"
I clenched and unclenched my hands; the use of them was coming back to me.
"Very well," said Belleville. He passed my chair and stalked to the other end of the room, where he opened a cabinet. I moved slowly and painfully to the very centre of the room. Then I stood stock still. Belleville, returning, paused within a foot of me. He carried a bull's-eye lanthorn. This he put upon the table, and presently he struck a match. A moment later a round shaft of intense blue radiance shot across the room and marked a moon-shaped sphere on the wall. It began to flit along the wall, up and down from the very floor to the height of a man's chest, until it touched the corner. Then it flashed back twice over the same path, and afterwards attacked the next wall. Sooner or later it would be bound to encounter and, perhaps, discover me. But Belleville was only a few feet off. Perhaps if I sank down the shaft would pass over me without touching. At least I could try. Suppressing a shriek of agony, I crouched upon my hands and knees. Then came another thought. Slowly and laboriously I began to crawl nearer and nearer to my enemy. The blue shaft was now shooting right over my head. I crept behind him and, breathing noiselessly, stood up. If I had possessed a tithe of my strength I might have reached out and caught his neck and strangled him with ease. But I dared not risk it. All on a sudden he uttered an oath. The lamp had gone out. "Damn the thing!" he growled. Putting down his revolver on the table, he opened the lamp and peered in at the smoking wick. We were now face to face and his cocked weapon lay within eighteen inches of my hand. I tried my fingers and found that they were reasonably supple. The blood was streaming through the puffy veins and vesicles. The operation hurt horribly; in fact, I was one mass of crude, raw, painful man flesh. But now I was full of hope and despite the muscular torments of returning animation I felt that my vigour was returning. Belleville snuffed the wick and struck a match along the table. The head came off. He took another and rubbed it on the sole of his shoe, stooping slightly to do so. As he moved I reached out and twined my fingers round the hilt of his revolver. But I had not the strength to lift it up. I cannot paint the agony of that experience. I exerted every atom of my will, but my hand was like a putty puppet. Tantalus never suffered torture half as keen. Withdrawing my hand, I put the fingers in my mouth and sucked the still half-lifeless digits. Meanwhile, the lamp flickered alight; Belleville took up his revolver and resumed his task. I watched him hungrily. The blue shaft once more began to play and stab the walls. It darted hither and thither, like an incandescent elf, dancing up and down and round and round, and into every hole and cranny of the room. But it did not find me out, because moving round and round the table as Belleville moved I always kept behind him. But this could not last for ever, and, indeed, the end came too soon. Belleville uttered suddenly a savage curse and swung round full upon me. Perhaps I had made some sound that had betrayed me to his nerve-strained senses. I do not know. He cried, "Ha! at last," and fired point blank. The bullet whistled past my temple. The smoke of the discharge flamed blue in the rays of the lanthorn. I fell upon the table and thrust it like a ram with all my force against my adversary. He fired again and once more missed, but ere he could repeat his tactics the table struck him and the lanthorn fell. He staggered back and the lanthorn rolled underneath the table. I pushed the table forward and kicked the lanthorn with my foot. It went out. Belleville, recovering his equilibrium, stood like an image peering straight at me and listening. Yet he did not see me: and for the moment I was safe, for the table was between us. But the man had brains. Judging swiftly where I was most likely to be, he gave an unexpected spring and vaulted clear across the obstacle. I had just time to step back ere he landed. He swung his arms about like flails, but failing immediately to find me, his ugly temper must needs flare up in curses. It was just what I needed to cover the sound of my movements. I evaded him and returned to the table, and then he knew not where I was. In a few moments he realised his folly and, once more relapsing into silence, he took up his lamp. But the oil had either been wasted or was exhausted. The wick refused to catch. He groaned out a blasphemous oath on this discovery, and rushed down to the cabinet, from which first he had procured the lanthorn. I followed him as swiftly as I could, having care to make no sound, and while he was filling the lamp with oil from a beautifully carven vase of solid gold Egyptian ware of the fifteenth dynasty, I once more put my hand upon the hilt of his revolver, which he had momentarily laid upon the edge of the cabinet. But this time I found I could hold and use it, too. Shadow-like, I caught it up and put my finger on the trigger. Then I backed away a yard or two and leaned upon a case of glass and steel.
"Belleville!" said I.
He started as though an adder had stung him, then seeing his pistol gone, he let both vase and lanthorn fall in his dismay and swung on heel to face my voice.
"It's my turn now," I muttered. "Hands above your head—up, man, up—higher—higher!" He saw the muzzle pointing at his breast and sullenly obeyed. I made him walk backwards to the chair that formerly had prisoned me and sit in it. And then, the steel pressed to his ear to keep him still, I managed, with one hand, to pass a strap around his throat and buckle it. Afterwards I similarly bound his wrists and ankles. When all was done I was so sore spent, so hideously full of weary pain, that I lay upon the floor and sank immediately into a troubled sleep. Belleville woke me with his struggles to get free. Somehow or other he had pryed himself on tiptoe backward, and the heavy chair, overbalancing, had dragged him over in its fall. That I had not heard, but the weight of iron and his own body was all curiously pressed upon one forearm, and the pain of it set him groaning like a wounded bull. The strangest thing of all was that this arm was free. Somehow or other he had writhed it loose. After I had tied it up again I sat down to think what I should do. I was not, however, in the mood to sit in judgment on him then, for although much stronger from my sleep, the exertion hurt, and every pang I suffered was too powerful an advocate of vengeance to let me try the rascal soberly. I needed food and drink. Not finding any in the room, I tried the door and after some short search, made out its fastening—a simple but clever slip of prodigious strength. I found the key to it in Belleville's pocket. He was madly anxious to be made acquainted with his fate, but I turned a deaf ear to all his questions, and slipping out of the room, I slammed the door on his solicitations. I found myself in a long, blind passage, lighted with a single jet, with another padded door set in its farthest end. This opened to the same key as the first. It gave me egress on a second passage, which led by three right angles to a big velvet-draped arch and a bifurcated maze of broad-balconied corridors. Here I saw the natural light of day for the first time in more than a week. Ah! how I revelled in it. I stopped before an open window and peered forth on a walled courtyard and the blank, tall wall of a neighbouring mansion beyond. Street sounds percolated to my ears. It was like coming back to life from the grave. Drawing back from the window, after some deep, delicious moments, I looked to find my body and my hands and feet. But I could not see aught but vague, delusive shadows, though the sunbeams glistened on me. The phenomenon filled me with a new sense of marvel and uncertainty. I had to pinch myself to make sure I was not a disembodied phantom—such stuff as dreams are made of. Yet I was real enough to touch, thank Heaven. Reassured, I made for the nearest door and softly tried it. Within was a man's bedroom—Belleville's, perhaps. It was untenanted. The next apartment was a sitting-room. It was also untenanted, but it contained a table, cover-spread for two. With a sigh of joy, I entered and hurried to the table. Under the first cover was a cold partridge pie. I did not touch the others, but, Lord, how I enjoyed that pie! I might have been a wolf—and then champagne! Later, seduced by an open cigar-box on the mantel, I threw myself upon a lounge and lit a weed. In ten minutes I was my own man again, and almost comfortable, for the torments that had racked my wretched muscles on reawakening from their tethered lethargy, were disappearing fast. But I was not permitted longer rest. Warned by a tap on the door, I had barely time to toss my cigar into the grate, when the door opened and a short, squat negro stepped into the room. He carried a salver of sweetmeats to the table; he stopped short and uttered a guttural exclamation of surprise. Next instant he was joined by a companion, but no negro, an Arab, a tall, thin Arab, who was the living counterpart of the mummified corpse of Ptahmes I had left in the laboratory, and of the mysterious scoundrel who had attempted my life in the cave temple at Rakh, and at my camp on the banks of the Nile. I was so utterly astounded that I wonder I did not shout out my amazement.
The negro spoke in Arabic. "By Allah, he has eaten and alone," he cried. "Now tell me, Ptahmes, how a man shall serve a master with so little feeling for his servants."
The Arab stalked solemnly over to the table and eyed the ruined pie.